Archive - May 1, 2014 - Story

While the US is quick to demand the rest of the world turn its economic back on Russia - especially the Europeans, it appears they are discovering - just as Putin warned, the world is considerably more inter-dependent than they thought. Following Chuck Hagel's orders to review the Air Force reliance on Russian rocket engines used to launch US military satellites, Bloomberg reports the Pentagon admits it "has no great solution" to reduce its dependence on the Russian-made engine.

Journalism and investment research have a lot in common, notes ConvergEx's Nick Colas; after all, both essentially ask the customer to freely part with three scarce resources: time, attention and money. It’s been a tough decade or two for both the newsroom and the research department in that effort, but at least one prominent venture capitalist, Marc Andreessen, thinks there is a future for the news business, however, due to a rising middle class in emerging markets and mobile Internet distribution. While this audience may not (yet/ever) be hankering to read Buy-Sell-Hold reports on their smartphones, Andreessen’s recently published 8-fold strategy for journalism has lessons for investment research as well. The big takeaway: sell-side research needs to change a lot – and quickly - to survive as anything more than an advertising vehicle for brokerage firms.

The still-dominant consensus view that America’s economy is poised to single-handedly yank the world out of its lethargy is likely to be disappointed once again with the odds high that our economy will remain burdened by growth-inhibiting monetary policies. In addition, it will continue to be negatively impacted by various other impediments, including a populace that is increasingly under-employed, an unwieldy and inscrutable tax code, a Rube Goldberg-like healthcare system, an increasingly ossified infrastructure, and a regulatory apparatus that congests the lungs of our economy, small businesses... weaning the stock market off of casino capitalism promises to be anything but pain-free. But did any responsible adult really believe there would be no pay-back for all these years of the Fed’s force-fed gains? If you do, you probably also believe foie gras grows on trees.

The consensus for tomorrow's non-farm payrolls print is 218k (and ranges from 155k to 292k across the 94 "economists" surveyed by Bloomberg. Goldman forecasts 220k - around consensus - thanks to the long-awaited full normalization of weather conditions in April which could provide some additional boost. In addition, the employment components of all ten major business surveys released so far improved in April, in each case to a level consistent with increased employment. They expect that the unemployment rate declined to 6.6% in April and a 0.2% increase in average hourly earnings (AHE). Wages will be the object of much attention following a flat read on AHE in March, likely reflecting the unwinding of weather distortions

If you don’t like how things work in a free market, just change the rules and financial engineer whatever the results you would like to achieve. And so, since 1995 we have been going from boom to bust from one bubble to the next as we try to navigate the financial markets that have been turned into a circus act.

With the repeated caveat that prudent investors should invest exclusively or nearly exclusively on a multi-year value forecast, my guesses are:

1. That this year should continue to be difficult with the February 1 to October 1 period being just as likely to be down as up, perhaps a little more so.
2. But after October 1, the market is likely to be strong, especially through April and by then or in the following 18 months up to the next election (or, horrible possibility, even longer) will have rallied past 2,250, perhaps by a decent margin.
3. And then around the election or soon after, the market bubble will burst, as bubbles always do, and will revert to its trend value, around half of its peak or worse, depending on what new ammunition the Fed can dig up.

As U.S. Justice Department prosecutors begin to bring the first criminal charges against global banks since the financial crisis, they are facing dire warnings of uncontainable collateral damage from none other than the sell-side's banking analysts... "Don’t play with matches," warned Brad Hintz, bringing up the specter of Enron (somehow suggesting we would better if that had not been prosecuted?) “The mere threat of requiring a hearing could cause customers to lose confidence in the institution and could cause a run on the bank,” warns a banking lawyer (well isn't that how it's supposed to be?). Too Big To Prosecute is starting to tarnish a little as Preet Bharara begins to bring the heat, adding, somewhat humorously that, banks have a "powerful incentive to make prosecutors believe that death or dire consequences await."

Days after acting Defense Minister Mykhailo Koval warned "the Armed Forces are not ready for this," Ukraine has announced the return of military conscription. After Mr Turchynov admitted his security forces were 'helpless' to quash the pro-Moscow insurgency that has tightened its grip on the increasingly chaotic east of the country, Koval believes "if there were conscripts in military units, then the situation might be different." Of course, this is exactly what the IMF 'demanded' as yet more cities in the East fall to pro-Russian separatists. We can only imagine how pro-Russian 20-23 year old men will feel when they get their call-up papers to fight... against themselves.

We could yarn on for hundreds of words discussing the ins and outs of falling volumes and record-er highs in US equity markets as Treasury bond yields collapse, macro- and micro-fundamental data slumps, and the total nonsense with regard to 'cash on the balance sheets' when it is all levered to the max. But when it comes to showing just who is buying the hope... and who is selling the hype, the following chart from BofAML sums it all up... institutional clients sold the most since January and the 4th most on record in the last week as retail clients continued their buying streak.

Filed under - "Government health care"... Health officials are investigating what may have sickened over 100 people who attended a conference where more than 1,300 food safety experts had gathered.

We can’t say this is surprising. After all, with average peasants, we mean citizens, now priced out of the domestic housing market (Zillow recently showed 1 in 3 homes are unaffordable) due to billionaire financiers and foreign oligarchs buying up all real estate in cash purchases, American serfs now will find out where the “elites” think they belong. In trailer homes, naturally. Oh, but the story gets better, a lot better. As is generally the case in the USSA these days, crony capitalist oligarchs have perfectly positioned themselves to benefit financially from the final transition of Americans to neo-feudalism.

While everyone is by now fully aware just how dependent Europe is on Russia's energy supplies (and most are aware of the "nonsense" that the US will fill any gap if Russia steps up its actions - which Barroso said wouldn't happen because "Russia has self-interest not to play the energy card") but few are truly aware of the scale of contagious debt-driven defaults that could occur if the US (and a reluctant Europe) decide to undertake more aggressive economic sanctions, which, as Germany's Europe minister stated today, "are on the table." As the following chart of Europe's domestic bank exposure to Russia show, Roth's warning that Russia's retaliation could mean "anything is possible," is a major problem for the Germans, Italians, and most of all - The French.

Everyone has seen them: those "inexplicable" bouts of furious selling in gold and silver, coming out of nowhere with no news or catalyst. In fact, look no further than what happened first thing this morning, when an unknown seller, smashed all stops in one big sale, and took silver to its lowest price for 2014.  This was a premeditated and deliberate selling of silver with one simple purpose: push and reprice silver lower. But this is nothing new: precious metal traders, especially those who are on the other side of the table of the BIS' Mikael Charoze or Benoit Gilson, and countless other commercial banks, are all too aware of this behavior and they take it for granted.  No, the real surprise is that suddenly none other than the CME is getting worred that manipulation this blatant is finally chasing regular retail traders away who are tired of being fleeced on a daily basis, leaving central banks and a few "fixing" banks to trade only with each other, which is not acceptable - after all it is the muppets' money that is fair game, not that of other cartel members. 

Rube Goldberg, eat your heart out...

It was a scene just like out of the Wild West. 18-year-old David Moreyra had stolen a purse. And an angry mob gathered in broad daylight in Rosario, Argentina to lynch him. It’s a rather unfortunate regression for a society. Civilized people don’t form angry mobs to act as judge, jury, and executioner. As I’ve long-written, there are consequences to destructive economic policy. Central bankers cannot conjure infinite quantities of currency out of thin air, nor can politicians borrow more money just to pay interest on what they’ve already borrowed, all without consequence. This is one of those consequences - a complete breakdown of the social contract, giving rise to something so Medieval as lynch gangs and mob justice. Can it happen where you live? Maybe. No nation is immune to the social effects of economic decay (think Detroit, or even New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina...).